"But..." Kody continued, and I nodded in satisfaction. Smart boy. I closed my front door and tossed my keys onto the little table that I'd designated my key place.
"Maybe they heard some rumors about things from the past," he offered, mimicking my movements as I sank down onto the couch.
I shifted, turning slightly to face him. Despite all my anger and heartbreak, he was still Kody. I knew him. I cared about him. And yeah, I wanted to forgive him. Deep down... really fucking deep down, I wanted all the bullshit between us to go away so we could go back to being whatever the fuck we’d been. Before the murders. Before the information bombs. Before the betrayals...
But that wasn't possible. We couldn't turn back time, and no one I knew had invented a selective-memory erasing tool. So we either needed to move forward... or walk away.
I hadn't totally decided which of those options would hurt me less. For now, I just wanted to understand him better. I needed to know what made Kodiak Jones tick and why he’d chosen to keep such a monumental, life-altering secret from me, despite the fact that he’d known it would totally crush me.
"Tell me something real," I whispered, meeting his gaze as I rested my cheek on the back of the couch. "Something truthful."
He exhaled heavily, ruffling his fingers through the top of his bleached hair. The pink from my prank had faded almost completely out, and I found myself itching to trick him again.
"You want to know how we broke away from the Reapers," he said. It was a statement, not a question, but I nodded anyway. "This isn't totally my story to tell," he started, but before I could interrupt with a snappy insult, he kept going. "But Arch and Steele can just kiss my ass if they have an issue with it. I told Arch I was done keeping secrets from you, and I meant it."
Ugh. Kody always knew the right things to say to hit me straight in the heart.
"So tell me," I gently prompted when the silence stretched between us. I pulled my knees up on the couch, getting comfortable as I settled in to listen.
He cast a sheepish look at me, his eyes tight with tension. "I'm trying to work out how to phrase it so you don't think the worst of us. Any of us. We've all done shit..."
"Like purchased underage girls and forced them into marriage without their knowledge?" I filled in the blank when he trailed off, and his shoulders slumped in defeat. "I'm teasing," I murmured, "but seriously, I feel like it can't be much worse than human trafficking. Right?"
Kody's answering smile was sad and tortured, and cold dread pooled in my belly.
"There's always something worse, babe. Always."
8
"So, I guess I should just tell you," Kody said after nearly a full minute of silence during which the tension kept building inside me. I was trying really hard not to speak, not to push him any harder... but it wasn't easy. I wanted to know all of it. The good, the bad, the awful. If there was going to be any chance of reconciliation between us, I needed to know it all.
He ran his hand through his hair again, then dropped his head back on the couch, looking up at my ceiling. "We never wanted to be in a gang. The three of us, I mean. None of us wanted to be like Zane and Damien. We didn't want to spend our lives committing crimes and using blackmail and brute force to remain free of incarceration. It just never sat right, you know?"
He flicked a glance at me, and I nodded silently. I could safely say that lifestyle had never appealed to me, either. It was why Dallas and I had fallen out. But then I was a rich white girl, so I couldn't go judging others for their desperate choices.
"Well, we didn't really get a choice. Arch... Damien tattooed him with the Reaper before he could even read. A mark of ownership more than anything." Kody cringed, then shot me an apologetic look. "Sorry, I'm getting off the point, and I'll feel like a total prick if I tell you their stories. Those ones aren't mine to tell, but this one sort of is." He cleared his throat, thinking. "Okay, so, we knew no one just left the Reapers, not once they were blooded in. It just doesn't happen. The Shadow Grove gangs are old school. Lifers. We knew if we wanted to get free of that whole lifestyle, we needed something big, something bloody, and something that would last well past our departure."
"Or otherwise they'd just hunt you down and kill you later," I mused aloud, nodding. "Yeah, that makes sense. It explains the terrified look some of the younger Reapers get when they look at you guys."
Kody wrinkled his nose. "Yeah. We sort of left a reputation behind, which... I wanna say it snowballed into something bigger than it should be, but it hasn't. If anything, the effect has dulled over time. Soon enough, some punk-ass bastards will try to prove a point and take shots at us, and we'll have to... you know. Remind them why we're not to be messed with."
I drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. I knew they'd done some bad shit in the past. I knew it just as surely as I'd known they were all hiding secrets that would bite me in the ass. So why pretend it's all such a shock?
One of the many mysteries of Madison Kate Danvers, I guessed. I apparently liked to blow shit up.
"I think I need a drink," I admitted. "You want one?"
How had I gone from wishing I'd never met Kodiak fucking Jones to offering him a beverage as we chatted on my couch? God only knew. I was okay with it, though. I’d probably do just about anything he wanted, if it meant I finally got some real, honest answers.
"Sure," he replied as I hunted in my fridge and pulled out a couple of strawberry-and-pear ciders. I popped the tops off and returned to the couch, handing one to Kody.
He peered at the label and wrinkled his nose, looking horrified. "MK... what the fuck is this?"
"Delicious, that's what it is. Quit complaining and continue with your story." I took a long sip of my drink and licked my lips. "Mm, tasty."
Kody's gaze locked on my mouth, and he made a sound of frustration. "Keep doing that and I'll never finish this damn story, babe."
I bit back a laugh. "Sorry. Keep going."
He took a sip of his drink, then made a face like it wasn't as bad as he thought, before letting out a sigh. "Okay, so, I won't go into details, or we will be sitting here talking for the next three days. Arch told you a bit about his grandfather's training camps, right?" I nodded. "Well, they gave us all the skills we needed to act when we saw an opportunity. We discovered that the Tri-State Timberwolves were planning a hostile takeover of Shadow Grove."
I gasped. The Tri-State Timberwolves used to be one of America's most feared criminal organizations. They were brutal and bloodthirsty—totally devoid of humanity or mercy. They were also basically extinct. The scattered remains of the formerly powerful gang were nothing more than an annoyance to their home base of Tri-State.
"Right. I take it you've heard of them?" Kody arched a brow at me.
"Who hasn't? The Tri-State Massacre was all over the news for months. It was one of the worst gang killings in history." The pieces clicked together in my head as I said this, and my brows shot up in shock. "Wait. You mean...? No way. There were more than a hundred deaths that day. That's not even possible... is it?"